Exploration
by PixieXW
Summary: Short story I wrote on the thoughts of a very young Doctor and how his childhood has helped to found his future.


"Theta Sigma," the sullen tones of Borosa interrupted his thoughts. A hand landed on the shoulder of the young boy. A scrawny twelve year old with legs and arms too long for his body sat on the marble bench outside the office of the headmaster of Arcadia's renounced Academy. He looked up at his teacher, brushing a limp lock of blonde hair out of his eyes. Those eyes Borosa noted, so full of pain- as much as Theta was far from his favourite pupil he felt his hearts contract just imagining the fear going through the immature brain of such a young timelord.

"I'm sorry. You can trust you will stay safe here."

Theta Sigma scrunched up his forehead, his mouth turning downwards into a pained frown.

"How can you say that? Hmm? Sir, what's to say Rassilon won't throw me out of the Citadel too!"

"Enough Theta! How dare you speak of the President in such a way! After all he has done for us!"

The young timelord lurched forwards, gripping the edge of the marble bench with white-knuckled hands.

"And what about my Father? He was crucial in the design of the new type 40 and now he has been banished. He did what the president expected of him!" Borosa snarled down at his pupil, his face twisting into an image of true disgust at the boy before he turned and swept a way growling a response over his shoulder. "You will never change Theta Sigma, no matter how hard we all try!"

The child, so young in the eyes of his people, was left sitting slumped against the dusty wall outside the headmaster's room. Slowly Theta Sigma began to feel his throat contract, feel goosebumps rise up on his pale skin. His parents were gone. However it wasn't losing them that had his eyes threatening to spill tears because he barely knew his parents. Yes he had been born to them from the genetic loom and had lived with them for the early years of his existence but he knew the academy better than he knew his own home, that was the way of the timelords. It was broken dreams that Theta cried for, the dreams his father had sparked in his last letter. He was going to escape, Theta Sigma and his mother and Father.

They had it planned, Theta would be brought out into the citadel with his father on the principal of work experience for the new generation of Gallifreyans but while there, the whole family would be inside the Dimensions work building. They would leave Gallifrey together in the Father's prototype Type forty void ship and escape. Theta hasn't understood why the chosen words of his parents was escape rather than explore or adventure, he didn't know what there was to escape from. The Academy was safe, the citadel of Arcadia fully secured and the planet encased in its own force field. Theta didn't understand what there could be to escape from. Yes school was the bane of his life and he hated Borosa and the other teachers- since he got bored learning uneventful history or dull responsibility, which had lead him into the claws of trouble on a number of occasions- but Theta Sigma, the boy with the floppy mess of blonde hair and legs which wore most of their width on the bones, knew school was all there was. He had missed his only chance to move away from the Academy, Arcadia and maybe even Kasterborous itself.

Theta dipped into the pocket of his uniform, rummaging around the things he had collected: a dried Conspitalium flower, a button and a tape measure before he found what he was searching for. He drew out what looked like a simple sheet of plain white paper. It was a tiny piece of paper, easily fitting into the palm of the little time lord's hand, but it was no ordinary sheet of paper. It was psychic paper, a present from his Father the last time Theta Sigma had a day out of the formidable academy building. The paper wasn't openly available to the public but due to working in the Dimensions building Theta's Father could get his hands on several things not available to all.

The paper was supposed to show a person what they wanted to see and so Theta's piece usually contained the same image. His Father used to tell him of this place in stories, a place where the sky was blue and the grass green. A place where human's weren't the slaves but the owners of slaves instead. To Theta this place sounded so unique, different from any other planet he had learned about in school- and he knew it was real.

The image of this blue and green planet surrounded by the white clouds that made up its ozone layer appeared on the tatty piece of psychic paper. The planet sat in the black depths of space, hundreds of years away but Theta Sigma saw it as clear as if he was looking out the window of a shuttle in it's orbit. His father had told him there were dozens of planets out there, and that was only in their universe- not taking into account that many others existed too. There was so much they could have seen in the void ship, so much out there but he wouldn't be able to see it now, now that his parents had been discovered. Theta didn't really understand the problem, why wanting to leave Gallifrey and go off to explore the beautiful universe around them was considered a bad thing. He knew that his parents had upset the high council to no end in order to be cast out of the Citadel into the beyonds, why was something incomprehensible. Why was something he would learn to look at carefully. When Theta grew and became aware of why the word 'escape' had been used by his father he also became aware of something else. The meaning of identity and the feeling of adventure.

The Doctor stood straight, hearing the TARDIS console creak beneath him as he removed his body weight from the ancient machine. A little boy with wild brown hair and animalistic blue eyes sat cross legged on the pilot's seat facing him. Lyronthriamiouska had been watching intently throughout the whole of his Father's story but now, the Doctor noted, his attention seemed to have moved elsewhere.

He took a step forward, rubber soles squeaking on the floor as he turned himself a half circle and sat beside the little boy. Lyron looked up at him, fiddling with the Velcro on his trainers as he began to explain the thoughts clouding his mind.

"Is this TARDIS one my grandfather made?" The Doctor looked around himself, scanning the whole of the ship's interior that was within his sight lines.

"I don't know," he replied, his voice soft but sharp. He could sense his own anger beginning to cloud his judgement. Yes he wasn't human but he thought of Sky, the half-sister of Lyron, and how she adored and depended on her mum at nearing twenty years old but he never had that opportunity, never had the warm hugs he knew Sarah Jane gave. Lyron sat at his side- six years old- and waited for his Daddy to say more, to tell him another story or give him some more TARDIS driving lessons but he didn't. The Doctor moved to kneel slowly down in front of his son. He knew Lyron could never understand what he was about to tell him- he was so young, had so much left to do- but the words flew from his mouth without a second thought.

"Promise me Lyron, that you won't follow the world. They are not you and you are not them. For me, for your grandfather, don't just fly this Orbit. Fly them all."

ps I didn't feel Lyron's backstory was necessary to read this but if you want to know more please message me.


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